Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb02gaskrich).pdf/199



was thought desirable about this time, to republish "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," the works of the two sisters, and Charlotte undertook the task of editing them.

She wrote to Mr. Williams, September 29th, 1850, "It is my intention to write a few lines of remark on 'Wuthering Heights,' which, however, I propose to place apart as a brief preface before the tale. I am likewise compelling myself to read it over, for the first time of opening the book since my sister's death. Its power fills me with renewed admiration; but yet I am oppressed: the reader is scarcely ever permitted a taste of unalloyed pleasure; every beam of sunshine is poured down through black bars of threatening cloud; every page is surcharged with a sort of moral electricity; and the writer was unconscious of all this—nothing could make her conscious of it.

"And this makes me reflect,—perhaps I am too incapable of perceiving the faults and peculiarities of my own style.

"I should wish to revise the proofs, if it be not too great an inconvenience to send them. It seems to me